Call Center Services Featured Article

Contact center outsourcing company Sitel is betting that President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will have a positive impact on the domestic outsourcing industry.

As part of the economic recovery package, the Federal government has committed about $7 billion to increasing broadband penetration in rural and economically-depressed areas throughout the U.S.

What’s more, the Federal Communications Commission has embarked on developing a national broadband plan to ensure that every U.S. citizen has access to broadband services.

Sitel’s rationale is that bringing high speed broadband into rural and low-income areas will expand opportunities for BPO providers to recruit home-based agents.

Certainly, there are plenty of people in those areas who would be happy to have jobs right now – so it’s a pretty safe bet to make.

“The home-based agent solution has gained increasing popularity in recent years,” said Amit Shankardass, chief global marketing officer at Sitel, in a release. “This unique model provides greater flexibility than traditional contact centers and allows agents to scale up quickly to manage peak call times or spikes in business. Expanding broadband Internet access into rural areas will enable Sitel and other U.S.-based outsourcers to tap into an entirely new domestic market and bring new jobs to these communities.”

Sitel -- which operates more than 155 facilities throughout North America, South America, EMEA and Asia Pacific and employs more than 60,000 CSRs -- launched its HomeShore propriety home-based agent offering in the U.S. and Canada in July 2008.

Recently, TMCnet’s Brendan Read asked David Eckert, chief information officer for Sitel, some questions about the advantages/disadvantages of the hosted/SaaS (News - Alert) model for the contact center.

Sitel also made news on TMCnet recently when it announced the appointment of Donald Berryman to the position of chief global sales and marketing officer. Berryman will lead efforts to grow revenue with new client acquisitions, expand programs with existing clients and retain Sitel's position as a leader in outsourced services. Berryman will report directly to president and CEO Dave Garner.

For more information, visit www.sitel.com.

Patrick Barnard is a contributing writer for TMCnet. To read more of Patrick’s articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Patrick Barnard

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